The Texas State Securities Board has closed down Wind Wide Coin- ICO that used fake endorsements from Prince Charles, Jennifer Aniston and other celebrities to illegally promote its token sale. The case was filed on Wednesday in an emergency cease-and-desist order. It was alleged that in addition to fraudulently touting unregistered securities, Wind Wide Coin used pictures of Aniston, Prince Charles, and former Finnish prime minister Matti Vanhanen amongst others, to deceive investors.
A testimonial by Kate Jennifer, a woman who bears more than a passing resemblance to Jennifer Aniston.
“I invested 4 BTC at Thursday and I received 8 BTC Friday. It’s great to have extra money for weekend shopping — like they say, easy come, easy go. Thank you WindWideCoin.”
Director of enforcement at the Texas State Securities Board, Joe Rotunda, reportedly stated that the scheme was “strikingly familiar” to many others that the state had recently shutdown.
“Today’s action is a reminder that, step by step and case by case, we’ve been uncovering a virtual playbook of tactics employed by promoters of illegal and fraudulent cryptocurrency investment programs. Although their names may change and their products may vary, these promoters are employing surprisingly similar schemes. They are often promising lucrative returns from sophisticated investments tied to cryptocurrencies, and then manipulating photographs, media, testimonials and other online information to deceive the public into believing their claims.”
Deceitfully claiming a celebrity endorses an ICO project is a common tactic that swindlers use to promote their schemes. This is not the 1st time that a project has used celebrity-likenesses, although not their names, to promote fraudulent ICOs. A particular token sale held an exit scam after people discovered that it had listed A-list actor Ryan Gosling as its graphic designer, which was a good revelation to the fact that the remaining team members were also made-up.
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